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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums5 Terrifying Statements in the Leaked Climate Report
Most media outlets are focusing on the document's conclusion that it is now "extremely likely"or, 95 percent certainthat humans are behind much of the global warming seen over the last six decades. But there is much more of note about the documentfor instance, the way it doesn't hold back. It says, very bluntly, just how bad global warming is going to be. It gives a sense of irreversibility, of scale
and, of direness.
In particular, here are five "holy crap" statements from the new draft report:
We're on course to change the planet in a way "unprecedented in hundreds to thousands of years." This is a general statement in the draft report about the consequences of continued greenhouse gas emissions "at or above current rates." Unprecedented changes will sweep across planetary systems, ranging from sea level to the acidification of the ocean.
Ocean acidification is "virtually certain" to increase. Under all report scenarios, the acidification of the world's oceans will increasethe draft report calls this outcome "virtually certain." As we have previously reported, more acidity "threatens the survival of entire ecosystems from phytoplankton to coral reefs, and from Antarctic systems reliant on sea urchins to many human food webs dependent on everything from oysters to salmon."
Long-term, sea level rise could be 5 to 10 meters. Journalists are already citing the draft report's prediction that by the year 2100, we could see as much as three feet of sea level rise. But there is also a more long-range sea level scenario alluded to in the draft report, and it's far more dramatic and alarming.
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/08/five-terrifying-statements-ipcc-report
Start teaching your children this phrase: 'Soylent Green Is People'
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)Not the DiCaprio version...the older excellent Brit version.
FarCenter
(19,429 posts)LiberalAndProud
(12,799 posts)We've passed the point of no return.
ananda
(28,837 posts)But the effects of climate change are already upon us,
and once the methane is released, well, it hardly bears
thinking about.
But it IS the truth.
Victor_c3
(3,557 posts)and I do understand that methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, but couldn't you just burn methane and basically convert it to carbon dioxide and water and reduce the impact?
hatrack
(59,578 posts)You'd change it chemically, but the resulting CO2 would be in the atmosphere much longer - on the order of 100+ years. Methane persists for about 12 years on average.
Victor_c3
(3,557 posts)truebrit71
(20,805 posts)I had heard dire predictions of the Arctic summer-ice disappearing as soon as 2015, Greenland going into full-on melt, but that doesn't appear to have borne fruit...yet...(hell I thought based on last year's amazing low-ice number we might be ice-free this year if the conditions were similar..)
I'm more concerned with the 'frozen tundra' of Siberia...we at least can get good research on the Arctic/Antarctic/Greenland melts, are we getting numbers that we can trust about Russia and their arctic circle melting?
KurtNYC
(14,549 posts)Dreamer Tatum
(10,926 posts)that require natural resources to create and even more natural resources to power.
So maybe you should pick what side you're really on?
KurtNYC
(14,549 posts)Do you think the rest of us are posting on abacuses?
Dreamer Tatum
(10,926 posts)of Samsung, and I don't under any circumstances post about X when my stated interests are, essentially, NOT X.
Climate change is, indeed, a grave concern. Corporations and governments need disincentives to create greenhouse
gases that may contribute to climate change. However, the OP is on record as saying that Apple's enormous cash
hoard is "not illegal." Neither are the practices that contribute to greenhouse gas accumulation.
Berlum
(7,044 posts)The Repubbies really know how to "deal" with a problem. They lie harder and faster.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,271 posts)9m, for instance, floods Bruges, Antwerp, Bremen, and about 80% of the Netherlands; and in England, turns Cambridge and Peterborough into seaports. In Florida, the ocean will reach Lake Okeechobee, and Miami will be part of a new set of Keys.
onehandle
(51,122 posts)So what's the big deal?
Stoopid librul worries.